If It`s Sunday, This Must Be Belgium, Or Germany, Or . . .

August 04, 1986|By Bruce Buursma, Chicago Tribune.

PARIS — He`s not actually complaining, mind you, but A. Donald Davies is stating for the record that his new assignment as bishop-in-charge of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe is not entirely moonlight strolls along the Seine riverbank and pastries in the courtyard of the elegant Hotel George V just up the street from his office here.

There are, of course, homilies to preach, ceremonies to officiate and confirmations to perform. But there are also several unfamiliar languages with which to contend, cultures to learn and customs officials and currency exchanges to confront with almost every parish visit.

``The currencies alone drive you crazy,`` says Bishop Davies, the Pittsburgh-born churchman who holds spiritual dominion over eleven widely scattered Episcopal churches and missions on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Even so, the pipe-smoking, 66-year-old prelate, who formally retired as the Episcopal bishop of Ft. Worth last year, is largely approaching his three- year appointment in Europe with a full measure of ecclesiastical glee, regarding the task as a lively new lease on his ministry and an opportunity to visit some of the world`s most historic and exotic urban areas.

For his efforts he receives no salary, but Bishop Davies and his wife, Mabel, are supplied with an automobile and a one-bedroom apartment just a few blocks north of the Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe. They also are reimbursed for expenses incurred in their travels throughout the far-flung diocese.

In addition to the American Cathedral of the Holy Trinity here, the English Gothic mother church of the Convocation and the home office for Bishop Davies, there are parishes and missions in Rome and Florence, Italy; Frankfurt and Munich, Germany; Moscow and Leningrad; Geneva; Brussels and Waterloo, Belgium; and Nice, France.

The churches, several of which have been established for more than a century, serve as sanctuaries principally for American expatriates and diplomats living in those cities, but they also attract tourists and a growing number of European-bred students who are eager for exposure to the English language.

The Convocation, which is administered and financed by the U.S. Episcopal Church as an overseas diocese, is only a small slice of the total number of English-speaking churches abroad.

The New York-based National Council of Churches` Office on International Congregations and Lay Ministries, for example, counts 96 cities thoughout Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia where there are worship centers for American Christians.

And the Church of England, the mother church of the Anglican Communion, maintains regular English religious services in about 200 locations throughout Europe and northern Africa, overseeing that mission through its Diocese of Gibraltar.

Although the Convocation was founded by the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion, the parishes are self-consciously ecumenical, with representation from a panoply of Protestant groups.

By Bishop Davies` reckoning, there are between 30,000 and 40,000 Americans living in Europe, including military and government personnel, business representatives and students.

The churches are hampered, he says, by the free-flowing transience of the expatriate community in Europe.

``Every Sunday,`` the prelate says, ``I meet someone who is heading out`` to return to the U.S. or to a posting in another country. ``It`s difficult to maintain the continuity of a program,`` Bishop Davies adds.

However, in recent years at least two of the Convocation`s parishes

--Paris` American Cathedral and St. Paul`s Within the Walls in Rome--have embarked on ambitious ministries to the mounting number of Third World refugees arriving in those cities, in the first full-scale attempt on the part of the U.S. congregations to play a more integral role in the life of the communities in which they are located.

Bishop Davies, who taught Christian education at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in the Chicago suburb of Evanston before his ordination as a bishop in Oklahoma and Texas, says he hopes to place a ``pastoral, rather than administrative`` stamp on his European mission.

The key demands on the clergy in the Convocation, he says, center on providing a ready ear for parishioners who are having difficulty adjusting to life away from home.

``There are many Americans over here who are lonely and whose biggest fear is that people back home might forget them,`` he says.

Bishop Davies, after conferring with the deans and rectors of the Convocation`s parishes at a meeting earlier this summer in Rome, is planning to embark on pastoral visitations to each of his congregations. Instead of the three-hour stops customary for bishops in their U.S. dioceses, the tours here are apt to run from three days to a week in each location.

``It`s important to be visible as a bishop,`` says the prelate. ``And it`s also good to be needed as a bishop,`` even in his latter years. His zest for the job has prompted several of his associates at the century-old cathedral here to gently remind him that he is technically retired and ought not spend more than a couple of hours each day in his spartan office at the back of the cathedral.

``We, too, are ambassadors here,`` Bishop Davies says. ``We try to identify with the culture and the people in each country. We try to speak the language.``

The bishop is working to bring his rudimentary French vocabulary up to the passable level of his Spanish. But he concedes that even a modest fluency in German, Russian and Italian is probably out of the question for him before his term is up and he carries through on his threat to ``retire again,`` somewhere in the heart of Texas, where his native English is generally understood.